


Behind the Walls

by wingthing



Series: The EQ Alternaverse [46]
Category: Elfquest
Genre: EQ Alternaverse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:06:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4949545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingthing/pseuds/wingthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bluestar visits Oasis, he learns there are many secrets hidden within its walls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

Bluestar had been warned about the extremes of Oasis, but still he found it astounding, that the sun-baked valley so intolerably hot in midday could be as cold as the Painted Mountains in winter once the sun set. He shivered despite the thick weave of zwoot-wool poncho. A year sailing the temperate seas on the Sea Holt had made him forget the bite of mountain air. 

The night sky a great overturned bowl, held aloft by the mountain peaks and studded with bright stars. Mother Moon was waning, and Daughter Moon had already set; beyond the glow of Maize’s lantern, he could make out only shadows. But his agemate ran on ahead, guided by memory. 

“Come on, slowpokes!” Jethel called over his shoulder. 

“Heehee! Waterleaf like sillyhead gigglehead!” the Preserver sang as it kept pace over Jethel’s shoulder. 

Bluestar rolled his eyes. “You would,” he muttered under his breath. Jethel was thirteen years old, but most days he acted more like he was seven. At a very mature ten – everyone told him so – Bluestar felt a proper elder by comparison. 

Still, he was a guest in Jethel’s tribe, and he knew he had to be gracious. The Oasis boy was clearly overjoyed to have another cub to play with – and perhaps it was the lack of agemates that had made him so childish. “It must be a novelty for you too, to have another elf your own age,” Maize had said when she’d introduced them. Bluestar had smiled politely. He didn’t bother to say that he’d been playing with the humans of High Hope since he was a toddler. 

They left the last of the farm plots behind them – the western walls loomed high overhead, blotting out a third of the sky. “Jethel, be careful,” Maize warned, but the child ran out of reach of the lantern’s light. 

“This way,” he called back from the dark. “It’s just through here.” 

“Jethel – you know those caves are off-limits.” 

“It’s not in a cave; it’s just next to it. Come on, Maizie, don’t be such a mother hen! I wanna show Bluestar.” 

“Why are the caves off-limits?” Bluestar asked Maize as they followed the sound of Jethel’s voice. 

“Don’t be frightened.” 

“I’m not. I’m curious. Why are the caves off-limits?” 

“They’re just old, that’s all,” she said. “The rockshapers haven’t been tending them for ages.” 

They left the clear path to tread over sand and crushed rock. Bluestar winced as he felt a shard of stone poke through the thin leather of his sandal. The rocks rose around them in crumbling hoodoos. Maize held the lantern high to help Bluestar find his way. 

“Why not?” 

Maize hesitated. “I don’t know really know. We don’t need them anymore, I guess.” 

“Why did you need them before?” Bluestar wriggled between two columns of sandstone protecting a stone-strewn clearing. Maize’s lantern illuminated a honeycomb structure in the rock wall directly ahead. He counted six… no, seven yawning holes in the stone, all similar in shape and size, all clearly artificial despite the indifferent scrubbing of erosion. 

“These used to be the jackwolf dens,” Maize said at length. 

Jethel was digging in the dirt by one of the cave mouths. “I found it last month,” he explained excitedly. “I knew I couldn’t show my parents – they’d just take it away from me and tell me it’s dirty. Come see, Bluestar.” 

Bluestar walked over as Jethel lifted his find from its hiding place. “Oooh,” Waterleaf sang. “Growler-growler head bone!” 

It was indeed a canine’s skull, weathered and chipped by age, the bone leeched as thin as an egg shell. Bluestar reached out and ran his fingers over the snout in a sad sort of wonder. Something didn’t seem quite right about the skull. Perhaps it was only the poor light, and his own ignorance of anatomy, but he could have sworn the muzzle should have been longer, and the dome of the braincase higher. 

“It was a hound!” Jethel said, in the same tone as another elf might say ‘It was Madcoil.’ 

“A jackwolf,” Bluestar corrected. He touched a snaggletooth protruding at a sharp angle from a diseased jaw. “This one was sick.” 

“They all were, towards the end,” Maize explained. “Put it back now, Jethel. How’d you like to be ages dead and have someone disturb your bones?” 

“It’s only a monster,” Jethel said authoritatively. “’Least it’s a good monster – a dead one!” 

“Hey! I’m a Wolfrider, remember,” Bluestar said, his hackles rising. “And we’ve got wolves in the New Land twice as big as that one–” 

Bluestar saw the blur of motion half a heartbeat ahead of Jethel. He was already shifting onto the balls of his feet – the better to fight or fly – when the creature sprang out of the cave mouth and snapped its great slavering jaws a hair’s breadth away from the youth. 

Jethel dropped the skull and scuttled back on his hands and knees, screaming all the while in a loud quavering note of fear. The hound slowly advanced, emerging into the light of Maize’s lantern. 

Bluestar stared at the creature in amazement. It had been canine once, but now there wasn’t an inch on the hound that hadn’t been dramatically altered. Instead of a jackwolf’s ruddy, spotted coat, the hound wore only the sparsest down over its naked skin, save for a wild mane of fur at its neck. The skull was heavier: the muzzle thick and short, the eyes bulging in their sockets. The feet ended in scaly claws better suited to a lizard than a wolf, and from its shoulders – High Ones! – sprouted serpentine tentacles that ended in a pair of hooked claws. 

“Argh! Get away, get away!” Jethel screamed, kicking feebly with one leg. The hound made playful nips at the toe of his slipper. A lizard-paw came down on the jackwolf skill and crushed it underfoot. 

“Maizieeeeeeee!” Jethel called out. Belatedly, Bluestar remembered their minder, and wondered if she had been struck just as helpless by the sight. 

But no. “Stop moaning, Jethel!” she snapped. “It’s just Three. Three, stop that!” 

The shapechanged hound halted its approach, one paw poised in midair, and turned a quizzical expression towards the elf maiden. “You know they can smell fear,” Maize said sternly. “You keep squirming and wailing like that and you’re only getting him fired up.” 

“What’s he doing here?” Jethel demanded. “What’s he doing here?!” 

“You are in his territory,” mocked a feminine voice, low and dangerous. Bluestar regained control of his muscles at last, and forced himself to turn away from the slavering hound, towards the speaker who floated a handspan above the rocky slope. 

“Carrun,” Maize greeted her politely. In response, the elf moved within reach of the lantern’s light. She was a dark-skinned maiden, with black hair dressed in a multitude of braids. She wore a hunter’s costume that seemed as first to be leather; but as the flickering light played across its surface Bluestar realized it was snakeskin, dyed a deep red. 

“Bluestar, this is Carrun, Eyrie’s daughter,” Maize explained. 

Bluestar nodded. “H’llo.” 

“You were wise not to panic,” Carrun told him. “The peace hounds pose no threat to honest, loyal elves,” she swept a disdainful glance at Jethel, “but they can still be provoked by more primitive emotions.” 

“I’m loyal!” Jethel wailed. 

“Your stench tells Three otherwise,” Carrun said. 

“I’m telling my father!” 

“Tell him what? That you were nosing about in forbidden caves?” 

“Carrun,” Maize cajoled. “He’s just a kitling. Leave him be.” 

Carrun whistled shrilly and the peace hound turned away from Jethel. It paced to Carrun’s side and sat down, waiting patiently for a command. At rest it was almost as personable as a human’s near-wolf. If one could ignore the tentacles and the clawed-feet. 

“His name is… Three?” Bluestar asked, to make conversation. 

“There are eight peace hounds,” Carrun explained. “There have always been eight – no more, no less. When one dies, Lady Melati makes another. Each of us has the charge of one hound.” 

“Us?” he asked, daring her to speak the words. 

“The Red Snakes,” she said the title without hesitation, without even a glimmer of shame. The elite elfin hunters known and feared by reputation alone; the story went that the name had first been coined by others, as an insult to their leader, but the Snakes had adopted it with pride. Bluestar had refused to believe it until this moment. Even the most untutored child recognized the allusion, after all. 

“They used to be jackwolves?” Bluestar asked next. 

“So I’m told. The jackwolves died out long before I was born. My father Fennec used to be a Rider, of course. When you could still ride them.” 

“What happened to them?” 

“Stagnation,” she dropped the dreaded word casually. “So much interbreeding, the blood got stale. The Riders tried to capture new jackals to add to the pack – they even brought wolves from the Wolfrider holts to sire new pups. But it was too little, too late. All the clean water in the world won’t flush out a tainted well.” 

“Couldn’t the healers help?” 

“Of course. Lady Melati made them into peace hounds.” 

Bluestar screwed up his face. “I mean… kept them jackwolves?” 

“Why? We didn’t need them to hunt anymore. We had the Pride… and later we had the fleshvines. Anyway, the peace hounds are much more useful. They can not only sniff out predators, but wrongdoers among our own kind.” 

“I didn’t do anything!” Jethel protested. 

“Everyone’s done something,” Carrun said dismissively. She glanced at Maize and softened. “Well, expect for you, Maizie. It’s all right,” she said when she saw Bluestar inch closer to the peace hound. “He won’t bite. He’s never so much as scratched an elf in his life, this one.” 

Bluestar held out a hand, as he’d been taught to do with strange canines, and the peace hound sniffed it, before rewarding him with a foamy lick. 

“He’s the first Shapechanged I’ve seen inside the walls,” Bluestar said. “We saw a shieldback on the road up from the Bite, but it was very far away.” 

“What, haven’t you seen a peacoo yet? Or one of the gigaquail?” 

“Those are Shapechanged?” 

Carrun laughed at his confusion. “A child of the College and he can’t tell the difference! Oh, Lady Melati will be flattered to hear it. They were among her first works.” 

“She doesn’t live here, does she?” 

Carrun shook her head. She was warming to him steadily as he continued to show polite curiosity. “She visits from time to time. When she’s needed. But we Snakes serve in her stead here in Oasis. She is the head, we are the hands,” she intoned, like a vow. 

“What does she do, out in the desert?” 

“Makes monsters,” Jethel sneered, his bravado coming back, fed by his injured pride. “The desert’s full of her cast-offs. Hounds that stand on two legs and bats that walk instead of fly, and even Shapechanged humans!” 

“That’s a lie, and a stale one,” Carrun chided. 

“What about the Master of the Shapechanged?” Jethel challenged. 

“Really, Jethy!” Maize said. “That tale’s as old as Squatneedle Spire.” 

“Huro saw the Master. Last summer!” 

“Huro stared at the sun too long as a child,” Maize dismissed. 

“What’s the Master of the Shapechanged?” Bluestar asked. 

“A dreamberry tale,” Maize said. “I remember my grandmother saying the Master of the Shapechanged would eat me up if I didn’t go to sleep on time.” 

Jethel drew himself up a little taller. “He’s the leader of the monsters – the ones that run wild in the desert. No one has even seen him up-close, but they say as tall as Lord Haken. He’s got claw-feet and a long tail and a twisted body, but he run like a human – or an elf! And he sings to the Shapechanged – but it’s not any singing like we know. It’s like… the bleat of a zwoot and the roar of a tuftcat and the jabber of human speech. And they say–” 

“They say!” Carrun rolled her eyes. “As if Lady Melati would ever dirty her hands with human flesh!” 

“You saying he doesn’t exist?” Jethel charged. 

Her hesitation was only momentary. “Oh, I’m sure he exists,” she said with an airy wave. “Many versions of him have existed over the years. Every time a hunter hears a beast’s roar or sees a strange paw print, ‘the Master of the Shapechanged’ claims another victim. Why do the Shapechanged even need a master when they already have a mistress?” 

“Why indeed,” Maize said authoritatively. “Now come along, Jethel. I’m sure Bluestar is tired. He’s not used to our thin air.” 

Bluestar didn’t bother to point out that he’d taken five days to ascend from sea level, and that he’d grown up in mountains almost as high as the World’s Spine. He was too interested in the red-suited hunter, and that moment’s pause when she’d had to decide which lie to tell. 

His mother was right: there were many walls inside Oasis. 

* * * 

He’d met the first wall in the Council Chamber, staring up into the strangely flat eyes of the High One. Haken: youngest of the Firstcomers, “Lord” to the elves of Oasis, “All-Father” to those who respected him, and “Snake’s Sire” to those who did not. Bluestar had been raised on tales of his exploits, both victorious and tragic. 

Bluestar knew something of High Ones; he had spent many an afternoon with Timmain, practicing his deep-sending. He understood that there was something profoundly… alien about them, and he knew to how to maintain a safe distance from their other-ness. Foolishly, he had thought those lessons had prepared him to meet Haken. 

But he was wrong. Haken was nothing like Timmain. 

He was present in a way Timmain could never be, his mere aura as overpowering as an aggressive locksending. The All-Mother always seemed vaguely detached, as if her thoughts were scattered on so many levels of reality at once. But Haken focused all his energy into his stare. He radiated old magic. 

And yet his gaze was guarded. He held his aura out like a shield. Compared to the welcoming presence within the College, Haken’s profound defensiveness made Bluestar think of a raw wound. 

Don’t look, he told himself. Don’t look at his arm. 

He could see the vaguest outline of a stump under the half-cloak Haken wore over his left shoulder. He forced himself not to linger on it, to meet the High One’s pitiless stare. 

“So…” Haken said at length. “This is Weatherbird’s child.” 

Bluestar dipped a bow in the Oasis fashion, back straight, arms swept outward, like a bird bobbing at a pool. The gesture seemed to please the lord. A smile ghosted over Haken’s lips. 

“I have known your mother for a long time,” he said. “She is… an elf of superlative talent.” 

“She’s told me much about you, my lord,” Bluestar replied promptly. 

And how she had. **Lord Haken didn’t raise those spires just to keep humans out,** she’d warned him, during their last communion on the astral plane. **And the closer we come to the Reappearance, the more restless he grows behind his walls. He’s hiding many things in Oasis, I fear. Things he won’t share with the rest of the Circle. But even the meanest wolf can let his guard down around a little cubling. So play the cubling and who knows what he and his might let slip.** 

**I thought Lord Haken was your friend?** 

**No, cubling. You trust your friends.** 

“And you’re not too tired from your journey?” Haken asked. “What did you think of the Steam Road? My grandson’s kin are quite marvellous, are they not? A credit to their elf-blood, of course.” 

Bluestar allowed himself a genuine smile. “I liked the train,” he said honestly. “But it was a little scary, being in the dark all the way.” 

“Surely you must be used to tunnels. You’re a child of the Egg.” 

“The Egg has windows. Lots of them.” 

“Trust me, the cool dark of the trollkin’s tunnels is infinitely preferable to the Burning Waste,” Haken said. “Besides, we can’t allow those jabbering apes to know where we’ve sunk our highway, now can we?” he added with a hint of a smirk. Bluestar wondered if he meant the humans or the pure-blooded trolls. Perhaps both. Two-Edge’s kingdom had spread out for hundreds of leagues around Blue Mountain, but there were still a dozen other petty kings scattered underneath the Homeland, all vying for power, united only in their hatred for King Smith. And if the humans of the World’s Spine loathed their god Manach as much as they feared him… well, Haken had done much to earn both emotions. 

“They know where the Sea Holt docks,” Bluestar offered. “And we didn’t see anyone spying on us when we came into harbor.” 

“You can thank the Shapechanged for that. My daughter Melati’s creatures keep the bay well-defended. How did you find life with the Waveriders? I confess I thought it a great folly, to set such a young child out at sea.” 

Again, Bluestar decided honesty was his best course. “I liked it. Well… once I stopped getting seasick. And I’m not the youngest to ever sail. They have whole families on the Sea Holt – half the crew was born at sea!” He considered his next words carefully “But I’m glad I’m back on land. I learned a lot on the ship. Now I’m ready to learn more.” 

“And so you shall. Your mother has already told me much of your training; it will be my pleasure to continue it. You’re already a fourth-level sender, I understand.” 

Bluestar grinned bashfully. “I want to take the test for the fifth level, but Father says I need to wait until my next birthday.” 

Haken chuckled. “Of course he would.” **And you can locksend, can’t you?** he went on silently. **And project yourself onto the astral plane?** 

**Yes, lord.** 

**And how old were you? The first time you… ‘went out’ as your diminutive kin like to call it?** 

**Seven,** he sent, felt the lie humming in his thoughts, and quickly amended, **nearly eight.** 

**Still a feat to be proud of. The only elf to have surpassed it is your own grandfather Sunstream. What else can you do?** 

“I have some of Father’s animal magic–” 

“That’s not real magic.” 

“Father teaches it at the College!” 

Haken chuckled. “Well, if it makes him feel useful…” 

“He can send at the fifth level!” Bluestar snapped, full of indignation. 

“You’re very fond of your sire, aren’t you?” Haken’s tone seemed equal parts amused and puzzled. 

“He’s my father!” Bluestar said, as if to a child. 

“Of course he is. And he surely wants you to improve yourself.” 

Bluestar felt himself squirm under Haken’s intense gaze. He tore his eyes away, to glance at the crystal sculpture sitting between Haken’s throne and the empty seat reserved for his consort. A triple-roofed hut was lovely rendered in shimmering translucent stone. Bluestar felt the air humming around it. 

Haken noticed his shift of attention. “You can feel it, can’t you? The call of the starstone. The Little Palace may be but a fragment of the Homeshell, but even its power is enough to unlock abilities long dormant.” **But your magic isn’t dormant, is it? I can sense it, thrumming just beneath your skin… power of the like never before seen on this blighted world. Old magic, from the days of my forbearers, when our mastery over the basic elements of reality was not considered anymore magical than the ability to draw breath.** 

“What else can you do?” the High One asked, in an idle tone that seemed almost rhetorical. Bluestar swallowed and said nothing. 

**What else can you do?** he asked more forcefully in locksending. 

“I… I don’t know,” Bluestar said. “Well… I’m trying out floating. I can make a coin stand on its end–” 

**I don’t mean first-level novelty trick.** 

**I don’t know what you mean, lord.** 

**Don’t try to lie to me in sending. Your mother ought to have taught you better than that.** 

Bluestar felt the weight of Haken’s stare like a physical pain. He dropped his gaze to the floor. 

**Show me,** Haken demanded. 

“Please… I promised Mother I wouldn’t.” 

Haken’s hand slapped down on the arm of the throne, propelling himself upright in a somewhat jerky motion. “Promised to deceive me? Does your mother think so little of me? Does she forget than I am Lord of Oasis and you are under my care for the next year?” 

“No, no, it’s not like that. It’s only…” 

**I am your lord, Bluestar.** His sending was an undeniable command. Bluestar hung his head. When he spoke, his voice broke on a whimper. 

“It’s… Mother says it’s dangerous! She says I’m not allowed to practice it without her.” 

In the face of his submission, Haken softened. “Your mother has entrusted you to my care, child. And you forget – I am a High One. There is no danger while you are here.” His words were gentle, but his sending was iron when he instructed, **Now show me.** 

Bluestar closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He gathered all his strength and focused on the tiles under his feet. He felt the ground move. 

When he opened his eyes he stood an armspan to the left of where he’d been. Haken was staring at him in wonder. 

“Telemutation,” he murmured. The word sounded as foreign as the human tongue. 

“Is that what it’s called?” Bluestar asked. “I… Mother and I just call it ‘flitting.’ Like a Preserver, you know.” 

“How long have you been able to do that?” 

“It started when I was six. I got startled one day and I… well, I jumped without jumping. Just one step to the side. Mother helped me focus and I learned how to do it on purpose. But she made me promise not to try it without her. I’ve never been able to do more than an armspan, but the Egg is really crowded. She was always worried I’d overdo it and end up inside a wall or something!” 

“Did she not tell Aurek of this? Or Timmain?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe. She never told me if she did.” 

“Child, you really have no idea, do you? This is a magic I’d never thought to see again. Even on the Homestar it was among the rarest of talents. The last elf I knew to master it died when I was only a child myself.” 

Bluestar gulped air. “From flitting?” 

“No. From other things. But your mother is right. It is not a trifle to be played with. Forgive me for being so… harsh. I understand now. I will help you with this, Bluestar. In time. A few paces is a fine start, but with greater control you can indeed ‘flit’ right through walls. For now though, you will keep your promise to your mother.” 

Bluestar smiled with relief. It had worked. A small truth can conceal a greater lie, his mother had taught him. The trick is knowing just how much truth you must reveal. It seemed he had chosen wisely. High One and child talked of lighter subjects for a time, then Haken called for Maize. 

“I have no doubt you’ll find your quarters here more civilized than a cabin on the steam train,” Haken said. “Or the Sea Holt, for that matter.” 

* * * 

Bluestar needed only an eight-of-days to fall into the rhythms of life at Oasis: waking with the sun, the mornings spent playing with Jethel, the afternoons slept away and the cool evenings devoted to languid amusements. Before long he was intolerably bored. 

There was simply nothing to do for a curious child. Perhaps he had been spoiled, after two years of adventures, first in the rainforest, then on the seas. But even in familiar confines of the College, he’d never been so idle. There’d been chores and studies and the constant exploration of an ever-changing Egg. 

But Jethel didn’t want to explore. There was nothing within the walls he hadn’t seen a million times. He had no chores to speak of, and he had no interest in learning, nor in teaching Bluestar for that matter. “Why do you know what to know about that?” he’d ask with a wrinkle to his nose, every time Bluestar pressed him about a particular plant, or a local custom, or the mechanics of the water wheel. He couldn’t even read yet! “Why bother? I won’t need it unless I become a scribe.” And the only games he seemed to like were contests of strength, which he handily won and gloated about. 

And for all his talk of educating Bluestar, Haken seemed in no hurry to begin classes. All his time seemed to be taken up in meetings with his rockshapers. Bluestar wondered why; he could see no major building works underway. But every time Bluestar dared to seek him out in Tallest Spire, he would find the High One closeted with Ekuar or Ahdri or Door. 

“As serious as Sunstream,” Haken chided gently. “And as impatient as Rayek. Don’t be so hasty. Take some time to get to know your new home.” 

He was trying, High Ones help him. But there was only so much one could learn wasting every morning at the swimming pools, listening to Jethel crow about how long he could hold his breath underwater. 

So by the eighth morning, Bluestar asked if he could follow Maize about her day instead. 

“Really? It’s nothing interesting, I promise. I just work in the fields. You might be better off going to the kiln with Mother.” 

Cholla smiled. “I could teach you how to use a potter’s wheel,” she offered. 

“Thanks, Auntie, but I want to see the farms. I’ve seen humans grow crops – there are rice terraces all around High Hope. But I want to learn how elves do it.” 

Klipspringer raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you want to be a ‘dirt-digger?’ I don’t know who’d be more outraged – Lord Haken or your great-grandfather.” 

“Uncle Rayek doesn’t call me a ‘dirt-digger,’” Maize pointed out. 

“Ah, but you’re a magical dirt-digger,” Klipspringer said. “That makes all the difference.” 

“Did Meerkat teach you how to plantshape?” Bluestar asked Maize as they set off together for the fields. Waterleaf flew overhead, buzzing happily to itself. 

“Oh no, she was off the College for most of my childhood, and I’ve never left Oasis. No, Grandma Spar taught me a few tricks, but most of it I just picked up on my own.” Maize laughed. “The family all placed wagers on what magic I would inherit – rockshaping or plantshaping. I guess we had enough rockshapers already.” 

“You’ve never left Oasis?” 

“Oh, I don’t mean I’ve never been outside the walls!” she giggled at the thought. “I’ve been out in the Thorn Fields, of course. And over to Melati’s Ruin – and Tufts even took me down the Steam Road to see the coast once. But when I saw the sea I got… this sick sort of feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. Like it wasn’t right.” 

“You don’t want to visit new places?” 

Maize shrugged. “Maybe when I grow up.” 

Grow up? Bluestar thought skeptically. She was already over a hundred years old. But then everything seemed to move so much more slowly in Oasis. 

He studied Maize as they walked. She was in many ways the dead spit of her mother, the same tiny chin and high cheekbones, the same owl-eyes and white-blond hair – though Maize wore hers in dozens of little braids, beads of jet and amber woven throughout to resemble the multi-colored kernels of her namesake. But he could see Klipspringer in her too: the wide mouth, the upturned nose, and the long bones of a Glider. 

She didn’t look at all like a freak of nature. And yet, according to Pool, that’s exactly what she was. “An aberration,” he’d pronounced, when Bluestar had once asked about her miraculous birth. “She’s more than a tyleet – she’s a… construct! A violation of all laws of nature.” 

She didn’t look like a construct. The peace-hounds did. Bluestar still felt a chill down his spine whenever he saw one – and he saw them regularly on patrol with their Red Snake handlers. But Maize seemed like any tyleet – preternaturally cheerful, perhaps, but otherwise indistinguishable from any other elf. 

“It’s a shame you didn’t come in Rainsign,” Maize remarked as she led him over to the corn fields. “You could have seen the planting.” 

“You plant fresh seeds every year?” 

“Mm-hm. We sow in Rainsign and we reap in Bonedry. By then the stalks are as tall as a zwoot’s head.” 

At present the stalks were just barely at Bluestar’s knee. Maize bade him crouch down and feel the thick earth. It was dark and loamy, and crumbled pleasantly in Bluestar’s hands. 

“The soil here has always been richer than elsewhere in the mountains,” she explained. “And over the years, rockshapers and plantshapers have worked together to improve on it. The right balance of minerals and invisible life-forms. It’s like a sponge, see? It can soak up the water of the rains without flooding, and it can continue to release moisture all throughout the dry months.” 

The stalks in the wheat fields were taller. “Our main crop is maize and wheat. But we also have our vegetable fields. And of course, many of the farmers still tend their own household gardens. Though most of what we grow is tended communally. Grandmother Jarrah oversees it all.” 

“Where do you grow the meat?” Bluestar asked. 

“The fleshvines? Oh, they’re all in the caves underneath Tallest Spire.” 

“But… don’t they need sunlight? They are plants, aren’t they?” 

“Oh, I don’t know what you’d call them,” Maize said. “But they don’t need sunlight. Just the feedbroth and fresh water and the seedrock to anchor in.” 

“Seedrock?” Bluestar repeated, dumbfounded. “You have seedrock here? But I thought it only came from the Painted Mountains. Aurek said it only grows there!” Seedrock was the rarest stone on Abode: the only kind that responded to elfin magic like the starstone of Palace. Bluestar had always thought his home the only source of it. 

“Oh, Aurek gave us some. Years and years ago – long before I was born. Grandpa Ekuar put it to work here.” 

Put it to work…. such a simple phrase could mean so many things. His mind raced. He couldn’t say why he was so unsettled, beyond a child’s sense of possession. That’s our rock, he wanted to insist. It’s what makes the Egg special! But that was unworthy of him. Aurek had started the College to spread the gift of magic – he could hardly sit on the seedrock like a troll on his hoard. 

Still… it bothered him. Seedrock responded to magic. The Egg itself was made of seedrock laced with starstone crystals– and its gentle revolution steadily converted the simple minerals into living stone. 

Oasis was a place that turned jackwolves into peace-hounds. What would it do with seedrock? 

“Bluestar?” Maize asked. 

“Hmm? Sorry. I was… up in the clouds there.” 

“Well, you come by it honestly, given your bloodline,” Maize laughed lightly. 

“Silverbaby highthing always buzz-buzz busyhead,” Waterleaf agreed. 

An hour’s leisurely walk took them to the southern limits of Oasis. Bluestar brushed his hand along the smooth stone wall. Unlike the jumble of sandstone hoodoos by the old jackwolf dens, this rock was tended regularly. He had no rockshaping gift himself, but any child of the Egg could sense the residual magic clinging to the stone. 

They stopped under the shade of a cloud-tree. A peacoo sitting high in the branches let out a soft trill. Waterleaf perched on a branch and tried to mimic its song. It took only a few shrill tweets from the Preserver before the peacoo decamped for quieter surroundings. 

“Tell me about Melati,” Bluestar asked next. 

“What about her?” 

“What’s she like? I mean… I’ve heard stories. But they were mostly from Pool and–” 

Maize bared her teeth in a sharp hiss, like an angry cat. 

“That,” Bluestar said. “And I know Pool and Mother quarrelled about me coming to Oasis – and I know why… a little. But I want to learn more. From someone who knows her – not just the stories others tell about her.” 

“Did you ask Jethel?” she asked, one eyebrow arching skeptically. “I’m sure he could tell you a fine tale.” 

Bluestar matched her expression. “Jethel can’t tell where north is half the time.” 

Maize laughed. “Oh, that’s so cruel. And so true.” She looked up at the peacoo in the tree. “Melati is… she’s the lifeblood of Oasis. She doesn’t visit often, it’s true. But she’s everywhere – in the birdsong we hear, in the water we drink, in the meat we eat. Elves like Jethel’s father… they fear her – and they make themselves blind to all she’s done for us. Without Melati, we’d still be sending warriors out to chase off humans. We’d still be slaughtering innocent beasts for flesh! Can you believe the Pride used to have to hunt! That when my parents were young there were days of… of want! Here in Oasis! Wants even Lord Haken could not satisfy.” 

He heard the reverence in her voice. “Like your parents wanting children?” Bluestar guessed. 

“Yes. Exactly.” She nodded vigorously, setting the beads in her braids rattling. “Mother says Pool was convinced it could never happen. All the healers were. They’d said it was impossible – that Mother was asking too much. Said we can’t always have what we want – can you imagine?! 

“The other healers gave up trying. But Melati never did. Not after all those failed Recognitions and incomplete healings – not even when Mama miscarried me!” she laughed carelessly. 

Bluestar stared. “So it’s true what Pool says? That you’re…” 

“Twice-born? Oh yes. And don’t make that face – it’ll stick that way if you’re not careful. Yes, Mama only carried me for… a little over a year. Her heart couldn’t take it – trying to pump blood for the two of us. So I went into the Cradle for another year. I don’t remember it, of course. Although sometimes I dream of it.” 

“How… how did it work? What was it even made of?” Visions of fleshy wrapstuff filled his head. “Did she… just take a goat and fleshshape it right there and stuff you inside?” 

Maize laughed long and hard at the image he conjured. “Oh bless you, no. No, she had it ready. I don’t know what she made it from. Maybe a piece of fleshvine? I’ve never thought to ask. I just know it was… like a big fleshy egg. And it kept me warm and kept me fed and helped me grow until I was big enough to be born properly.” 

“Mark my words,” Pool had accused, “the meat-trees, the constructed wombs… she’ll be growing elves before long.” 

“That’s the incredible thing about her, Bluestar,” Maize continued. “She never gives up. She never stops until she’s got what she wants. And what she wants is for everyone to be safe and happy!” she finished cheerfully, utterly oblivious to the shudder that ran down Bluestar’s back. 

“But not everyone understands that,” she added sadly. “And they make it so hard for her to be here.” 

“Is that why she made the peace-hounds? To sniff out her enemies?” 

Maize’s expression turned cool. “What strange questions you ask. No, of course not. She already knows who her enemies are.” 

* * * 

“Melati? Oh, she’s a piece of work, that one,” Sust ruled as he straddled the cylindrical lump of flesh. To Bluestar’s eyes it looked like the sausages the humans of High Hope liked to make. Only this sausage was the size of full-grown elf, and wrapped in a shiny pink skin that made him think of a piglet. It tapered to a rounded stump at one end, like a neck in need of a head. The other end was a gash cauterized with a hot blade. 

Around them, six massive tuftcats lay sunning themselves on the rocks. They took no interest in Sust or the cub; even in late afternoon, it was too hot for curiosity. But when Sust drove the blade of his short-sword into the sack of flesh, the smell of hot blood immediately roused the Pride. Sust took Bluestar’s shoulder and gently guided him out of the way of the hungry cats. 

“I never thought she’d come to much good,” Sust went on. “I mean, how could she – mother dead, father run off… and then that wretched business with Maleen’s boy.” 

“Maleen has a son?” 

“Had. Cousin of yours, actually. But he's old bones now.... And when Melati started messing around with shapechanging… well, I was one of the loudest voices shouting her down.” 

“Was?” 

Sust smirked. “Your ol’ uncle had to eat his words, didn’t he? Look at all the good she’s done.” He swept his hand to indicate the animals now feasting on the lump of meat certainly seemed as real as a fresh kill. But for the lack of bones, one would never guess it was carved off the fleshvine like fruit from a tree. 

Bluestar still shuddered at the memory of that ‘tree’ – roots like tentacles soaking in pools of nutrient-filled broth, supporting a trunk as wide around as three elves linked hand-in-hand, and branching vines of meat and skin that clung to the cavern walls. The way the flesh of the trunk seemed to palpate with a heartbeat… and the stench of burned meat whenever the carvers sliced off a thick cut of meat. The tree was covered in shiny scars from frequent harvests. 

“It can’t feel pain,” Maize had insisted. “No more than a tree having its branches pruned.” 

“It was an animal once,” Pool had taught him. “A beast that once ran free. A beast that deserved a clean death – not this endless torture – a mindless, soulless thing… eaten alive yet denied death.” 

“Look at those cats!” Sust went on. “Born and raised in plenty – going back more litters than I can count. When I was your age, tuftcats were so vicious no one thought I could bond with one. But take away hunger and fear and danger and they go gentle as zwoots!” 

“And that’s… good. Turning cats into zwoots.” 

“Would you rather be fighting every day just to stay alive? I wouldn’t. Why would it be any different for tuftcats?” Sust saw his skepticism and smiled. “Let me guess: my brother’s still teaching ‘You can’t control the worldsong – you can only respect it.’” He rolled his eyes. “You know how we keep our Pride from going the way of the jackwolves?” 

“Melati?” Bluestar guessed. But Sust laughed. 

“Naw, simpler than that. Every eighty years or so we go find a longtooth. Oh, not here, of course. But there are prides of them up northwesterly way. They’re cousins of tuftcats – we figure tuftcats are just longtooths that made it across the Ice Bridge to the New Land. So we pick a real wretched-looking one – chased out of his pride, starving. And we give him a new home.” 

“And your cats accept the longtooth?” 

“Why wouldn’t they? We’ve bred them to be friendly. And you think the longtooth’s gonna be too proud to join up with the tuftcats? See that one over there – with the long tail?” 

Bluestar nodded. The spotted cat was noticeably slimmer than his pridemates, and while he had the tufted ears and maned jaw of a tuftcat, he sported a fluffy tail, easily twice the length of the little stubs the others possessed. 

“His great-grandfather Snaggle was pure longtooth. I remember when we brought him back here. Took him three days to start letting the tuftcats groom him. Two months to play with them. In one season he was trying to mate with Bekah’s cat. You’ll never tell me Snaggle would have rather ‘respected the worldsong.’” 

“So you don’t hunt anymore?” 

“Why bother? I’m no savage – I don’t need to go kill things to feel alive. Not like some elves! Sure I used to hunt. We used to need to. Now we don’t. Don’t see we got the right – killing something when you don’t need to. My Papa Pike always taught me – never take more than you need. Only humans take more than they need.” 

“But you still hunt something, don’t you?” Father said…” but he trailed off. 

“Your father said what?” 

“He said ‘Don’t let your Uncle Sust drag you off one of his hunts.’” 

“Oh, we still have chases!” Sust grinned. “If we didn’t these furballs would be fat as zwoots too! We’re planning one tomorrow – you oughta come watch. Actually, no. You oughta come ride with us!” He smirked. 

“But Father said–” 

“Of course he did. Just like he always tells your mama to stay out of trouble. And does she ever listen?” 

Bluestar hesitated. “Sometimes…” 

“Uh-huh. And Haken sometimes smiles. You know what I think? I think your mama would never have gotten into so many fixes if your papa had just kept his big mouth shut.” 

Bluestar raised a skeptical eyebrow at the description, but Sust didn’t seem to notice the irony. “And I think he knows it. I think he does it just to get into trouble so he can get her out of it. And I think he only warned you about my hunts so you’d ask me about them!” 

Bluestar nodded thoughtfully. It did make a certain sense. 

“Sooo… it stands to reason… he’d never warned you off them if he didn’t want you to come anyway and have the time of your life!” Sust finished with a grin. 

Well, when he put it that way…


	2. Part Two

The Pride assembled at dawn on the flats just outside the Sun Gate: ten riders in all, astride tuftcats in a variety of spotted pelts. Sust took up position at the lead astride Lashtail, the longtooth’s great-grandson. Bluestar scrambled up in front of him, wrapping his legs around the tuftcat’s broad neck. Though lean compared to his kin, Lashtail was still large enough to bear them both without complaint. 

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not invited this time?” Maize pouted prettily as she helped Tufts wind a scarf over her largely-bare head. Though Bluestar had heard it remarked that Tufts was currently wearing more hair than she had in years – no less than five serpentine braids that hung to her shoulders – she had still left large sections of her scalp shorn and oiled. The child winced at the thought of the sunburn that would result if the scarf slipped off. He tightened his own scarf over his hair. 

“Mmm,” Tuft nuzzled noses with Maize. “I’ll bring back countless lovely cuts and bruises for you to fuss over, lovemate.” 

“And you’ll have great fun getting them, won’t you?” Maize smiled fondly. “My barbarian.” Then she remembered Bluestar and she turned to Sust. “You will take care of him, won’t you? No rough-riding through the Shambles? Remember, he’s just a kitling.” 

“Sust took me hunting when I was a kitling,” Tufts pointed out. 

“Yes, but you were born to it.” 

“So was I!” Bluestar insisted, fed-up with the incessant coddling. “I was riding wolves before I could walk. Besides–” he pointed upward at the circling Preserver. “I’ve got Waterleaf – so how much trouble could I really get into?” 

“Waterleaf take good care of silverbaby highthing!” Waterleaf called down encouragingly. 

“We doing this or not?” asked Huro, the youngest of the tuftcat riders. He wore a scarf tied askew on his head and streaks of white clay around his eyes. 

“Riders, to me!” Sust called, raising his sword high. 

“Be safe!” Maize called, a last desperate appeal, as they rode towards the rock wall. As Lashtail neared the sandstone, it melted away, revealing a tunnel to the world outside. Sust nudged Lashtail’s ribs and the tuftcat began to run. Bluestar let out a little yelp of delight as the cool morning air hit his face. 

“Who’s shaping the rocks?” he asked. “I didn’t see anyone–” 

“Oh, it’s ol’ Yurek,” Sust shouted in his ear. “He’s always on guard. No one gets in or out without his leave.” 

The tunnel measured little more than a hundred paces long, and suddenly the rocks were gone and they were out under the pink sky once more. The still-unseen sun had painted a bright line of light on the eastern horizon. Sust turned the Pride north before the Daystar could mount the horizon and blind them all. They descended into a gulley and gathered together to plan the day’s hunt. 

“So who’s it gonna be?” Huro asked eagerly as he dismounted. “We gonna draw lots again?” 

“I haven’t had a chance in ages!” Bekah pouted. 

“Count me out,” said Shasu. “My digestion can’t take being prey.” 

“No one told you to eat so much the night before a hunt,” Bekah pointed out. 

Tufts eyed Bluestar with a smirk. “I think it should be our guest-of-honor.” 

“Tufts!” Maleen chided. “He’s just a child. Anyway, he doesn’t know the rules.” 

“Or the land,” Coppersky pointed out. 

“What rules?” Bluestar asked. “What are we talking about?” 

“Who we’re going to hunt today.” Sust said. “Come on, let’s do this fairly. We call for volunteers, then draw lots from there.” 

“I’m in,” Huro piped up. “Me too,” said Bekah, “And me,” said Tazah. 

“Oh, count me in as well,” Coppersky volunteered. “Someone needs to offer a bit of a challenge.” 

“You hunt elves?” Bluestar piped up, incredulous. His father had never told him this part. 

“Yep,” Huro teased with a malicious smirk. “And then we flay ’em good and roast ’em up for supper! Didn’t you know?” 

Bluestar ignored the taunt. “So it’s… like counting taal?” He’d played variants of the game both inside the Egg and in the village of High Hope… at least until the human cubs had realized they could never win against an elf child. 

“Uh-huh. With tuftcats,” Sust added with relish. 

“I’m in,” Bluestar declared. 

“Hah. Nice try, cub. But your father would never forgive me. And believe it or not, there is a limit to just how much I want to rile him up.” 

Coppersky snorted audibly. 

“Come on, let the kit put his name in,” Tufts said. 

“It’s too dangerous,” Maleen said. 

“And it would make poor sport,” Tazah added. The maiden looked at Bluestar skeptically. “He doesn’t even have a mount.” 

“So we give him double the lead time,” Tufts said. 

“Please, Uncle Sust? I want to try it.” 

Sust looked to be wavering. “But if you get hurt…” 

“Leetah will fix me up and Father never needs to know!” 

“We don’t leave children unsupervised,” Maleen said. “It’s too dangerous.” 

“You said there’s no danger in Oasis anymore,” Bluestar reminded Sust. 

“There’s always danger,” Maleen countered grimly. “Even behind the walls.” 

She was thinking of her son. Bluestar had finally gotten the story out of Maize, after inquiries to older elves had been rebuffed. Yosha… that had been his name. Born of forced Recognition between Cricket and Maleen, and dead fourteen years later. The last elf to die in Oasis, four thousand years earlier. A grim sort of fame. 

“Yosha was Melati’s lovemate,” Maize had explained. “His death broke her heart. She swore she’d never let another elf die after that. And she swore she’d never love again.” She sighed approvingly; the tale appealed to her romantic nature. Bluestar hadn’t bothered to remark that surely it was Leetah who deserved the praise for keeping the elves of Oasis healthy, since Melati seldom visited anymore. 

He looked out over the Thorn Fields. All he could see where deformed pricker-trees and a multitude of rocks: he’d faced more threatening surroundings in the rainforest. 

The Pride continued to argue. At length Coppersky interrupted. “Scat! All right – I’m deciding this. Put the kit’s name in. If he’s drawn, we hunt him first. Then you’ll hunt me. That should be sport enough for you all!” 

Maleen began to protest, but Coppersky cut her off. “Even with double the lead he won’t make a quarter-league before we catch him. How much trouble can he get into? Sust?” 

Sust fished out the lots – simple oblongs of bone polished and painted with different symbols. He counted out enough pieces for all the volunteers and shook them together in a small leather pouch. “Blank piece is the prey,” he instructed. “Don’t show till I tell you.” Each elf dipped a hand in. Bluestar was the last to draw. When Sust gave the signal, they opened their hands. Bluestar’s piece was a pristine polished white. 

“There it is,” Sust said with a laugh. “All right, cub – you sure you want to do this? No shame in backing out.” 

“So why should I back out?” 

“Because your Wolfrider pride will never recover when we hunt you down under an hour?” Tazah suggested. 

Bluestar grinned. “That sounds like a challenge. You know what wolves do with challenges, don’t you?” 

* * * 

They left him in a stand of cacti and gave him until the sun cleared the mountains. Waterleaf insisted on accompanying him, but Bluestar warned the bug to keep silent. “Or you’ll spend the rest of the day in my pocket!” 

“No fuss-muss. Waterleaf be good.” 

“Good.” Bluestar turned and scampered up the crumbling hillside. 

It had been a long time since he’d been allowed to run properly. Waterleaf hastened to keep pace. Mindful of the unfamiliar terrain, Bluestar tried to keep to the high ground – he might be more visible, but at least he would not get trapped in a dead end. He left negligible prints in the dusty ground, but he knew the tuftcats would easily be able to follow his scent. Would that he had some bittergrass or a proper stream to swim through. 

It wasn’t long before he heard the snarls of the tuftcats on his trail, and whoops of the riders. 

Tazah was right, of course. He wouldn’t last long against practiced trackers, not over unfamiliar terrain. Still, he was determined to try. 

He came to another gully carved out by the seasonal floods. He ran downhill, heading steadily northward. The ragged rock tower called Melati’s Ruin loomed on the horizon. He tried to keep its summit in sight as he wound his way through a series of twisting slot canyons. But soon he was in too deep, and he could see nothing overhead by the canyon walls. 

He heard an elfin voice: female, filled with excitement. 

“He’s in the Shambles! It’s all over now.“ 

“Get down, Waterleaf!” he hissed under his breath. 

“Scamper-scamp in circles. Waterleaf will find the way.” 

“No! Don’t let them see you!” 

Waterleaf flew up over the lip of the canyon wall to scout. “Oooh! Waterleaf see!” it trilled. Somewhere in the distance, an elf let out a howl of triumph. 

“Puckernuts!” Bluestar ran on, leaving the Preserver behind. He blundered down the trail until he came to a sheer rock wall. He scrambled for handholds but found now. The riders were closing now. He heard ten sets of paws flying over sand and stone, ten different laughs echoing through the canyon. 

He could just see the top of the rock wall. He could picture himself standing on top of it. 

Sorry Mama, he thought, as he closed his eyes and concentrated. 

He heard a slight pop in his ears, and when he opened his eyes, he was standing atop the rock wall, out of the canyon. He dropped down onto his belly and held his breath. The Pride had descended into the canyon. 

He heard them draw to a halt below him. He heard the outlines of hostile words and he imagined Tufts and Tazah blaming the cats for chasing the wrong scent trail… 

And then he heard Waterleaf buzzing overhead. “Silverbaby hiiiiiighthing?” it trilled. 

In once, in for eight, Bluestar decided. He twisted his head and fixed his gaze on a listing boulder some forty paces away. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt his ears pop and he was crouching at the foot of the boulder. He looked north and spotted a flat patch of ground. Eyes closed, ears popped, and he was there. With each ‘flit’ the feat became easier. Each time he picked a more distant landmark, and each time he made it there in the literal blink of an eye. One jump after another, until he could hardly register the ground underfoot, until he seemed to float on the astral plane itself. 

He didn’t ever want to stop. 

* * * 

He was completely lost. 

Bluestar looked around at the unfamiliar landscape. He couldn’t see the walls of Oasis anymore – he couldn’t even Melati’s Ruin. He was crouched in a shallow bowl filled with ancient salt deposits. The air smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. 

The sun hung high overhead – it had been hours since he had started flitting, and now he was completely exhausted, overheated and desperately thirsty. He had already drained his waterskin in three long draughts, and there was no shade under which to take shelter. 

“Well… this is a fine mess,” he murmured to himself. 

He had only himself to blame. His mother had warned him about flitting too far, too fast. But it had been so easy to fall into a hypnotic rhythm. It must be what dreamberry wine felt like. 

On the good side, he was pretty sure he’d proven his mettle to the Pride. 

Now what to do? He could go out and send for help, of course. It would be a small feat for him to reach Haken. But… then he’d have to admit just how he’d come in his “telemutation” training. He could send to Mother – or even better, to Grandfather and the Palace. But then they would find out he had flitted without permission – and he’d be in even more trouble than if he’d just confessed to Haken. He could wait and hope the Pride could smell him out – but he knew he’d left no scent to follow. 

So there was only one thing for it. He’d have to figure out how to get back all on his own. 

He hiked out of the bowl, until he could see all around him. The view was not encouraging: nothing but sand and salt flats and strange chalky mounds that reminded him of termite nests. The highlands were bare of even the hardiest plants, while the lowlands lay under a layer of brownish vapor. Lurid colors streaked the salt pans – yellows and oranges and the brownish red of dried blood. Bluestar squinted up at the sun and tried to get his bearings. He had been flitting steadily northward: surely he had only to start back southward. 

At the moment, however, he couldn’t summon the energy to flit more than a few paces. 

Off to his right he could see a cluster of larger mineral formations, perhaps a league distant: ovoid domes like a half-buried clutch of massive bird’s eggs. He could make it that far at least. He could find shade and maybe some water that wasn’t too noxious. 

He wrapped his scarf over his nose and mouth to soften the ever-present reek of sulfur and began to walk. 

He’d barely gone a hundred paces when he heard the roar. 

He had heard all manner of animal sounds in his life: wolves, mountain lions, enraged sea-bulls and lowing shagbacks. But he had never heard quite such a roar before: loud as thunder and with a reverberation that seemed to make the very air shudder. It was coming from the mineral domes. 

“Well, puckernuts,” Bluestar muttered. 

Then the answering calls began: snarls and whimpers and distant yips like jackwolves puppies’. Bluestar looked around, bewildered. A streak of movement over the saltpan to the right. A cluster of shapes racing through the sands over his left shoulder. They were all too far away and moving too fast to identify. But he knew in his bones they had to be Shapechanged. 

“And he sings to the Shapechanged…” Jethel had said. 

Bluestar felt a wind at his back, surprisingly cool. 

He slowly turned and saw the cloud of black dust rising from the horizon. It billowed upwards like smoke. 

Bluestar tightened his scarf over his mouth and began to run. As he felt the first pinpricks of grit striking his back, he tried to flit. But he had neither the strength nor the focus for it. 

He caught sight of a Shapechanged running parallel to him, one ridgeline away. It ran on two legs like a flightless bird – or a deathclaw – but its head and torso were clearly canine in origin. The roar echoed again over the plain and the creature ducked out of sight behind the ridgeline, a second before the ridgeline disappeared under a veil of swirling dust. 

The wall of dust caught up with him. The blast of wind Bluestar clear off his feet. He hit the ground hard, tried to roll into a crouch and recover. But the howling storm would not let him up. Flying dust tore at his exposed flesh. The wind held him on his hands and knees. Bluestar crawled towards the first rock he could find and huddled behind its scant shelter. Dust piled up around his feet. He coughed and retched against his scarf, trying to keep the grit out of his mouth and nose. When he managed to force his eyes open, he saw nothing but a black haze. 

A third roar, barely audible over the sound of the wind. Bluestar took a gamble. He filled his lungs with a breath more dust than air and screamed back. The storm swallowed up his cry as soon as it left his lips. 

This would be a perfect time to admit defeat and find his mother on his astral plane. But he was too afraid to leave his body to mercies of the storm. There was no way of knowing if he could find it again. 

So he tucked his chin to his chest and wrapped his arms around his head, trying to protect himself as much as he could. He focused on his rapid breathing and his racing heart. As the dust continued to pile on his head and pool around his legs, he thought he heard an elf’s voice calling a single word. 

“Child…” 

A scaly set of claws fastened themselves over his forearm, and he felt himself wrenched up from the sand. 

* * * 

Bluestar awoke far sooner than he let on. He dimly recalled being carried slung over a bare shoulder, outrunning the wind. He remembered when the dust fell away, replaced by clean air and solid rock walls. He saw flashes of light in a long dark tunnel. But then the creature carrying him finally slowed its pace, and he closed his eyes and feigned sleep. 

He felt himself being lifted up, then cradled against a body wrapped in lizard skin. He struggled not to flinch when the clawed hand that had seized him earlier now ghosted over his face gently. A raspy voice hummed comfortingly. 

Bluestar forced him limbs to hang slack. He let himself be carried an indefinite distance in the strange arms. Dull light flickered beyond his closed eyelids. He felt a sudden softness underneath him as his rescuer laid him down on a bed. A real bed, with sheets and a pillow for his dusty head. The clawed hand brushed the worse of the dust out of his hair, and again he heard the elfin tongue murmuring “child…” in a sort of dumbstruck wonder. 

The shadow over him withdrew, and Bluestar risked opening his eyes. He saw a rockshaped den not unlike the deeper storerooms at Oasis: all smooth stone walls and lantern light. He saw a figure just on the edge of his field of vision, tall and lean, shedding a long cloak from his shoulders. 

His throat tickled. The irritation grew, until he couldn’t suppress a cough. One led to another, until he was racked with dry heaves, trying to expel the sand lodged deep in his throat. Hands fell on his shoulders, turning him, letting his head hang over the bed. When the fit abated, he felt himself guided back onto the mattress. Something wet touched his lips. A waterskin. He felt the first drops of cool water and a longing moan escaped him. 

“Drink,” the shadow urged. “Drink.” 

The claws came under his skull, holding him up just enough that he wouldn’t choke. Water trickled down his throat after the first swallow he abandoned caution, sucking greedily at the spout until it ran dry. 

He tried to open his eyes again, but his vision swam. He thought he made out a face, elfin in its proportions, but heavily deformed. 

“Sleep,” his rescuer whispered. “Safe now.” 

Bluestar obeyed. He willed himself into a dreamless oblivion, all dark and cool and safe. 

He awoke to the sound of voices arguing and the faint hum of starstone in the air. 

“ – just be sensible for once,” a female voice, pleading gently, but with a note of irritation. 

“I am!” the masculine growl he remembered from before. “Very sensible. I found him. I saved him.” 

“But Beast, we can’t keep him!” 

“Why not?” 

“This isn’t another lost puppy!” 

“It’s a child!” the male voice said eagerly, then added, almost bashfully, “He looks like me.” 

“Oh, Beast…” 

Trying not to move his head, Bluestar cracked his eyes open. He could see two figures in shadow, one elfin, the other… not. Not entirely. 

He’d seen his share of fleshshaped elves before: Tyldak and Bonebat with their wings, Coris and Fairweather with their tails. He’d even met a maiden in the deep rainforest who’d had her skin tinted green and her hair made to grow in leaf-like dreadlocks. But he’d never seen an elf with massive claw-feet and a twitching tail! 

“Why would you want a child?” the female continued. Bluestar blinked repeatedly, trying to clear his vision. She was made up entirely of shades of red: red hair, red-brown skin, a gown of red silk. As she turned slightly, he saw the source of the starstone glow – a cluster of crystal shards worn at her throat. 

“Why not?” the creature argued. “He could stay with me when you’re away. And I could teach him – I – I could take care of him,” he said, in a tone of wistful longing. “He could be ours!” 

“Oh Beast,” the elf-woman sighed again. 

“Please? Please, Mel?” 

“We can’t keep him. He must a family of his own.” 

“They didn’t take care of him! He was all alone. I saved him! That means he’s mine now. That’s how it works!” 

The female held up a hand to silence him. She glanced towards Bluestar, and Bluestar closed his eyes tight. 

“Shh. He’s awake…” **I know you’re awake, child.** Her voice echoed in his head. It held none of the warmth she’d reserved for her companion. **You have no need to fear.** 

**Are you sure about that?** Bluestar asked. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes again. When neither elf made any sudden move towards him, he sat up and rubbed the lingering grit from his eyes. 

“You’re Lady Melati,” he stated, trying to sound confident. 

She nodded. “And you… you don’t come from Oasis. You’re far too pale for that… but not quite pale enough to be one of those savages out of the north. Hmm… and silver hair… you’re right, Beast, he does look like you. Not just the hair, something in the eyes as well.” 

The shapechanged elf took a step forward. The light caught his face and Bluestar got his first clear look at the Master of the Shapechanged. 

It was hard to look past the extensive fleshshaping, and the scar tissue that covered half of his face. But Bluestar noted the bones of his skull, the shape of his jawline, and the familiar shape of the silvery eyes. He looked like he could be the child’s elder brother. 

“You must be Weatherbird’s child,” Melati declared at length. “My lord has spoken often of you. He was eagerly awaiting your visit; strange that he let you stray so far from Oasis.” 

“How far from Oasis am I?” 

She regarded him curiously. “You truly don’t know, do you?” 

“I wouldn’t ask if I did.” 

“A full day by Steam Road; ten by foot. So how did you find your way here?” 

“Is that real starstone, or converted seedrock?” Bluestar countered. 

She smiled as she touched her necklace. “Shards of the Little Palace. Fragments lost during the Flight from Sorrows. When I found them they were almost completely inert. But I restored them. There – I have answered your question. Will you answer mine now?” 

Bluestar shook his head. 

“M-my name is Beast,” the shapechanged elf piped up. “What is yours?” 

“Bluestar.” 

Beast grinned. “Are you hungry, Bluestar? You must be. We – we can have supper – the three of us together! Oh, but you’re all dirty. Would you like to bathe first?” 

Bluestar forced himself to return the smile. “I would, thank you… Beast.” 

* * * 

“What do you mean you lost him?” Haken raged, his voice echoing off the walls of the council chamber. Sust could only hang his head. 

“Forgive me, lord. I don’t know what to say. We lost him. His scent, his tracks… he just… vanished into thin air.” 

Haken’s eyes widened, then narrowed to angry slits. “I see…” 

“We’d been sending for him all day – telling him to come out of hiding…” 

“You should have come back hours ago!” 

“I… I thought if I could just flush him out… no one would have to know. Please, lord – if anything’s happened to him....” 

“Who else knows he’s missing?” 

“The Pride, of course, but that’s it. I’ve left the others outside to keep searching – I came right here.” 

“Good. We must do what we can to keep this our secret.” 

He strode across the chamber to the Little Palace. A soft hum filled the air as he laid his hand on it. 

“Are… you calling for Sunstream?” Sust asked nervously. 

“And admit our failure? I hardly think so. Or would you care to tell your brother that you let his precious son slip his leash?” 

Sust shook his head vigorously. 

“No… we shall simply have to find the boy ourselves.” Haken closed his eyes and drew on the power of the Little Palace. He let his spirit out of its confining shell, to explore the astral plane. He send out a call pitched exactly for Bluestar, and when he received no answer, he broadened his area of search. The call went out again and again in an ever-expanding circle, until he heard a faint reply. 

It wasn’t Bluestar’s sending. But it was an answer. 

In a flash he was back in his body, looking down at the frantic Sust. “Well, it seems my daughter has saved your skin… and mine. She has the boy. He’s quite safe.” 

“He’s with Melati? I thought she was still up north at the Cinder Pools?” 

Haken smiled condescendingly. “I hardly think it likely that Bluestar could have reached the Cinder Pools by himself, do you?” 

Sust bowed his head. “No, of course not.” 

“Now you’d best call back the Pride and go tell Cholla that Bluestar won’t be home tonight.” 

* * * 

The bath was a rockshaped depression that filled with steaming hot water from a fissure in the rock when Beast removed a heavy plug. It smelled slightly metallic, but it felt heavenly on Bluestar’s aching flesh. After he’d scrubbed off the last of the sand, he climbed out of the pool and wrapped himself up in a too-large robe of zwoot’s wool. 

Supper was some sort of roasted meat. Bluestar ate heartily, too famished to remember proper Oasis table manners. Beast watched him with the wide-eyed fondness of a cub for his first wolf-friend, while Melati studied him guardedly. 

**You haven’t tried to send for help,** she remarked, as Bluestar picked the last scraps from his plate. 

**We’re a little out of the way for that.** 

**Not for you, to hear Haken boast of you. I hear you’re every drop the Blood of Palacemasters.** 

**Do I need to send for help? I thought I had nothing to fear from you.** 

They were sending openly, but Beast did not seem to react. Bluestar risked a glance at him. 

**He cannot hear us,** Melati confirmed. **He is quite deaf to sendings.** 

Bluestar had never heard of an elf who could not send. For a moment he thought of Pool’s warnings about Melati growing elves like fleshvines. Was that what she’d done here – was Beast elfin flesh without an elfin soul? But even humans and trolls had souls, surely. And Beast seemed as intelligent as any human. Surely even Melati could not create souls. Did she steal one from the starstone around her neck? Had she learned how to restore the spirits of the dead to living flesh? 

And why did Beast’s unscarred features seem so familiar? Why did Melati drew attention to their resemblance just before she guessed Bluestar’s identity? 

**Who is he? What happened to him?** 

**That’s none of your concern.** 

“What happened to you, Beast?” Bluestar asked aloud. 

Beast blinked. “What? When?” 

“How did you...” Bluestar gestured vaguely. “Get to be how you are now?” 

Beast frowned a moment. Then he grinned. “Melati.” He held up his shapechanged arm, flexing his muscles to show he could make the spines at his elbow rise and fall. “She made me better.” He turned an adoring gaze across the table. “She makes everything better.” 

Bluestar could have sworn he saw an added flush of red rising to Melati’s cheeks. 

“But what about that?” Bluestar pointed to the scarring on Beast’s face. “Why didn’t she make that better?” 

“She did,” Beast said. “I was broken and she fixed me. She’s very good at fixing.” 

“You must be tired, child,” Melati said firmly. “After this you’re going to sleep, and then I will take you back to Oasis.” 

“Can’t he stay longer?” Beast asked eagerly. “You’d like to stay, wouldn’t you, Bluestar? We could go exploring – do… do you like exploring?” 

“Beast,” Melati warned. 

“I do like exploring,” Bluestar agreed. “Why did Melati need to make you better? What was wrong with you before?” 

“I was broken. I said.” 

“How did you get broken?” 

Beast narrowed his eyes. Clearly he did not like the current line of questioning. “What matter? It happened. Long ago… long before you.” Again, something in his expression struck Bluestar as achingly familiar. It made him think of the look Weatherbird would give him when she’d caught him doing something foolish. 

“That wretched business with Maleen’s boy… a cousin of yours.” 

“Yosha was Melati’s lovemate… she swore she’d never love again.” 

“Who were you before you were Beast?” Bluestar asked. 

“Enough, child,” Melati warned. Bluestar turned towards her. 

“Why does he look just like me?” **I’m right, aren’t I?** 

**I swear, if you know what’s good for you, you will shut your mouth!** 

“Why do I look like him?” Beast asked Melati, confused. 

“Are you going to tell him?” Bluestar demanded. 

“Tell me what?” Beast got to his feet. “What?!” 

Melati hesitated, and Bluestar seized on the chance. “You’re my cousin.” 

Beast stared at him dumbly. “My mother’s grandfather… he’s your sire’s brother,” Bluestar explained. “You are Yosha, aren’t you? Cricket and Maleen’s son. Everyone thinks you’re dead but you’ve been hiding here all this – aagggh!” he clutched at his temples as a stinging pain between his eyes stole his voice. 

“That’s enough out of you!” Melati hissed. 

“Yosha…” Beast repeated. “That name. I had… forgotten.” 

“Beast?” 

“Why do I hear that name again?” he demanded, springing up from the table. He pointed an accusing finger at Bluestar. “How does he know that name? He’s too little. He shouldn’t know. No one should know. They should forget, like I forgot. Why? Why did you make me remember?” 

“I… I’m sorry,” Bluestar offered. He looked to Melati for guidance. 

“Yosha is dead,” Melati said firmly. 

“This is my skin now,” Beast added. “I’ve had it longer than he ever did! It’s too late – too late – he can’t have it back now!” 

Melati hastened to Beast’s side and held him close. “He won’t. He’s long gone, you know that. Shh, my sweet Beast. You’re safe. Remember: you’re safe. I chose you.” 

**You brought him back from the dead?** Bluestar guessed. 

**I tried to,** Melati admitted. **I was… unequal to the task.** 

**He doesn’t remember anything?** 

**He doesn’t want to. What he does remember frightens him. You have frightened him.** 

**I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…** 

Melati closed her mind to him. “Shh… it’s all right, Beast,” she soothed. “I’ll take care of everything. You go on to bed. Forget about the boy. He’ll be gone when you wake up.” 

“We can’t send him back now!” Beast cried. “He’ll tell! He’ll tell them all and they’ll want him back!” He twisted free of Melati’s embrace with a bitter laugh. “See? We have to keep him now!” 

Oh puckernuts, Bluestar thought. 

“Don’t be silly. They’d ask too many questions if he just disappeared.” 

“But–” 

“Beast, do you trust me?” 

“Always!” 

She smiled tenderly and kissed the scar that ran across the bridge of his nose. “Then leave everything to me.” 

She seized Bluestar’s hand and wrenched him up from the table. **I hope you’re happy.** 

**I’m sorry–** 

**Sorry sorry, always sorry, yapping ravvits – so much easier to beg forgiveness than to actually think before you open your mouths!** 

She jogged him down the corridor towards the bed where Beast had first laid him down. When she wretched one silk throw off the mattress Bluestar’s first thought was that she was preparing a shroud. **Please, I won’t tell anyone! I promise! You don’t have to–** 

**Don’t be stupid.** She seized a pillow and shoved it into his hands. Then she dragged him around a corner out of sight of the bed. “Until that scene at the table I was minded to let you have my side of the bed. But instead you’ll sleep here.” She let the silk throw pile on the ground. “Tomorrow it’s into the Steam Road and down to Oasis.” 

“There’s a station here?” he asked, before he remember she had learned to rockshape. 

“You think I would let those sneaking trollkin build a station anywhere near my refuge?” 

Bluestar shook his head. “No. You wouldn’t let them find out about… Beast.” 

Melati’s expression softened. “You think me cruel by keeping him a secret. But you saw what the mention of… of that name does to him. He’s worked hard to forget. So have I.” 

“But why? I don’t understand why you didn’t just–” 

“Take him to Oasis? Show him off? ‘Shade and sweet water, you all remember Maleen’s son? Well, he doesn’t remember you – any of you. And it’s no good trying to share your memories with him, because his mind is locked up as tight as a human’s!’” 

Her voice was choked with bitterness, but she could not stop herself. “‘But look, doesn’t he remind you so much of all the pain I caused you when I challenged him to climb rocks after dark? Why, you only need look at those scars to remember… to remember that – that night… like it was… only yesterday.’” A sob stole her voice and she turned away, drawing a deep breath to steady herself. When she looked back at Bluestar, she was in control of herself again. 

“There, now you’ve upset us both. And will you do the same to Maleen and the others? When they’ve mourned and moved on, just as we have. Yosha is dead! There’s no reason to torment them all with Beast’s existence.” 

“I’m sorry,” Bluestar said again. 

“Anyway, Beast doesn’t want them to know. Even if I did… I respect his wishes. No one must know, he says. He is my secret, mine alone.” 

“But Carrun knows, doesn’t she?” he asked, realizing as he said it that he probably should not have. 

“What? What has Carrun told you?” 

“Lies. Good ones. But not quite good enough. She’s seen him, hasn’t she?” 

Melati said nothing. “Does she know who he is?” Bluestar pressed. 

“If she does, she’s been wise enough not to speak of it. And it was a mistake letting her see… a moment’s weakness, many years ago.” 

“Carrun keeps your secret, so can I. I promise.” 

A ghost of a smile, not unlike Haken’s half-hearted attempted, drifted over Melati’s lips. She bent down until she was eye to eye with the child. “I believe you can. I believe you can do just about anything you set your mind to. Precious kitling….” She stroked his cheek. “I am very sorry for putting you through this, truly. But I’m afraid there’s nothing for it.” 

Her hand carded up through his hair, coming to fasten over the dome of his skull. Her stare bore into him. 

“What–” 

Her other hand pressed down on the other side of his head. Her lips moved, mouthing a word. 

Forget… 

**Wait–** 

**Forget.** 

Sleep rolled over him like the wind of the duststorm. He felt himself swooning under the weight of her hands. 

**Forget.** 

* * * 

“Wakey-wakey!” Waterleaf buzzed. 

Bluestar slowly opened his eyes. He lay on a pallet in an unfamiliar room, surrounded by familiar faces. Uncle Sust looked relieved, Lord Haken vaguely disapproving, and Maize overjoyed. A group of other elves were clustered together over Maize’s shoulder – her parents, and one other he could not quite see. He tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but Leetah the Healer stepped forward and gently guided him back down. 

“Wha…” he slurred. “Where…” 

“You are in my chambers,” Leetah said crisply. “Though I see no reason why. The swelling inside your skull has already gone down. It seems my granddaughter did the right thing putting you in a deep trance.” 

“You needn’t sound quite so bitter about it,” spoke a strangely familiar voice. The press of elves at his bedside withdrew slightly, and Bluestar saw the speaker, an elf-woman clad all in red, her form and features a taller, leaner version of Leetah. 

He was certain he had seen her before, either in sendings or in the flesh. But for the life of him, he could not recall where. 

“Who… are you one of the Red Snakes?” 

She smiled lightly. “I am the Red Snake.” 

“My daughter Melati found you quite some distance from the Pride’s hunting grounds,” Haken explained. 

“What happened to me?” Bluestar asked. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Melati asked. 

“I… I was counting taal with the Pride. And I…” he struggled to recall what had come next. There had been flitting, certainly. More than he’d ever want to admit. And swirling dust… a sandstorm? And then only darkness and the vague dreams of voices in the shadows. 

“I was patrolling the northern limits of the Thorn Fields when I found you,” the red maiden explained. “It seems you taken something of a tumble – oh, nothing serious, but you were quite delirious from heatstroke in the bargain. I thought it wisest to keep you asleep for the transit back to Oasis.” 

“You’ve been gone almost two full days,” Sust piped up. “I’d say that’s a new record for a hunt. But let’s not crow about that to your papa, shall we?” 

The mention of his father jolted Bluestar alert. “Do they know? Mama and Father?” 

“No, and I see no reason why they need to,” Haken said. “After all, it was assumed you’d commit a few youthful follies here.” **Fear not, Bluestar. Your secret is quite safe.** 

Bluestar smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Lord Haken.” 

“You owe my daughter thanks as well,” he prompted gently. 

“Thank you, Lady Melati. I guess I’m real lucky you happened by.” 

“Dare I ask what you were doing out there at high noon?” Leetah asked. 

“Putting my new mount through its paces. I think I’ve finally found a lasting compromise between speed and stamina.” 

“If you ask me, the crescent-horns were just fine before you started improving them.” 

“But no one asks you, Grandmother.” 

“Now, now,” Cholla spoke up. “Leave her be for once, Leetah. And Melati, you are having supper with us tonight – I insist on it. It’s the least we can do after you took such good care of Bluestar. I’ll cook you up your favorite stew.” 

Melati inclined her head slightly. “I’d be glad to. And I’d like to get to know young Bluestar better. Such a promising little lad.” 

For some reason, her praise sent a shudder down his spine. 

“I hope you’ll stay for a few days at least, Aunt Melati,” Maize said. “We all miss you when you’re away so long.” 

“Oh, I’m quite sure ‘all’ is an exaggeration, my dear,” Melati narrowed her eyes at Leetah. 

“I do worry for you, Granddaughter, believe it or not. I worry what you’re becoming out there, all alone.” 

“My Shapechanged keep me company.” 

The Shapechanged… he had dreamed about them: wolves that ran on two legs and a creature that looked almost elfin… 

He shook his head, trying to remember more, but the dream was already gone. 

* * * 

Haken met Melati as she was exiting Klipspringer and Cholla’s chambers. 

**You wiped the boy’s memory, didn’t you?** 

A lesser elf might yelp in surprise at the intrusive locksending. But Melati merely turned her gaze towards the tall shadow lingering in the alcove. 

**A necessary precaution.** 

**Oh, do not misunderstand me. I quite approve. But it does make me wonder just what he witnessed at your Cinder Pools.** 

**Come north and see for yourself, whenever you like.** 

He smiled faintly. **No need. I know you cherish your privacy. And I trust you’d give me no reason to regret giving you such a free hand.** 

**Never, my lord father.** 

A flick of fingertips motioned her closer. **You are prepared, I trust?** he asked. **We are but one year away from the event.** 

Melati nodded. **I will need to bring some…specimens with me. I trust I can borrow Flitrin to cocoon them properly.** 

**Of course.** 

**I’ll return in time to help with the final conversion. But do you think it necessary? Can a pack of humans truly endanger the very flow of time?** 

**A merest moment out of place could undo everything. And the survival of our kind cannot be entrusted to those fools in the Homeshell – they have made that abundantly clear. Swift tasked me to calculate how to save the most elves if it came to it. But the souls beyond Oasis are not my concern. We will survive – that’s all that matters!** 

Melati raised an eyebrow. **And when the rest of the Circle realizes you’ve enough converted starstone to make a rival Palace?** 

Haken gave a soft tsk. **Patience, child. One crisis at a time.**

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the full EQ Alternaverse at http://www.janesenese.com/swiftverse


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